Wildlife World

We had an excursion out to Wildlife World, the relatively new zoo in Darling Harbour. It’s an interesting place, set up more as a living animal museum, than a zoo or sanctuary, with the majority of creatures set behind glass. The visitor traverses the dark, carpeted corridors and views the animals in these dioramas of their natural habitat, complete with real cut foliage. The ‘exhibits’ are quite good, with a lot of information on each animal and for those uninterested in animal diet or genus, there were interesting animal anecdotes featured on the walls. It’s the highest concentration of animals in the smallest area. I don’t know how humane it is to keep animals in such miniature accommodation but it makes for easy viewing as a spectator. In any case living in such close quarters with others animals and gawking humans can’t be that great. Considering the definition of wildlife is animals living in their natural habitat, the sad irony was not lost on my students. Darling Harbour is full of such tourist attractions, scaled down simulations of what the ‘real’ landscape or wilderness would be like e.g. the Outback information centre, the Sydney Aquarium, the Imax theatre etc.

I think a large part of the zoo’s function is its upkeep of international perception of Australia. Down Under certainly does have its share of unique fauna and the highest count of poisonous critters but it was amusing the way the spiders and snakes were displayed. Exhibited in ascending rank of ‘6 Most Venomous’, Max noted how most of the arachnids which we peered at in dimly lit enclosures he had encountered on a regular basis in his back yard (with the merciful exception of the Funnel Web). I’m sure everyone has known of a tourist terrified of a shark attack in Bondi or urban travellers who routinely shake out their shoes for fear of Redbacks and while I don’t have any derision for the caution exercised, I wonder how locals have learnt to be so blasé about their own habitat.